Roger Doiron, kitchen gardener extraordinaire and founder of the website Kitchen Gardeners International, actually DID the math.
Of course, your monetary mileage here in Colorado may vary — it’s likely that your water needs will cost you a little more and you may have to initially get more compost and/or (hopefully organic) fertilizer. Our soil is notoriously challenging and low in organic matter. Then again, you can maybe ditch that health-club membership, because digging in that dirt will keep you so fit and firm, and your doctor co-pays will likely go down. Then there’s all the intangibles — sunshine, excitement, learning, the incredible satisfaction of not having to buy lettuce for months on end, tomato bragging rights, gift-budget savings, tanning-booth savings … but mainly there’s this:

Susan Clotfelter has always played in the dirt, but got dragged into gardening as an obsession when she reclaimed her hell corner: a weed-infested patch of clay inhabited by one tough, lonely lilac and a thicket of weeds. Along with training as a Colorado State University Extension Master Gardener volunteer, she dug deeper with beds of herbs and lettuce at her home and rows of vegetables wherever she could borrow land. She writes for The Denver Post and other publications and appears on community radio.

Julie's passion for gardening began in spring of 2000 when she bought a fixer-upper in Denver's Park Hill neighborhood, and realized that the landsape was in desperate need of some TLC. During the drought of 2003, she decided to give up on bluegrass and xeriscape her front yard. She wrote about the journey in the Rocky Mountain News, in a series called Mud, Sweat & Tears: A Xeriscape story. Julie is an avid veggie gardener as well as a seasoned water gardener.